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Monday, November 21, 2011

A Night of Writing Dangerously

November 18

3:00 pm

It’s been busy at work. I found out I probably won’t get to go home for Christmas. I’m on the wrong side of the country. I didn’t write during my lunch break, which made me grumpy. My hip is hurting from when I was hit by a car while riding my bicycle. I foolishly read an article about a writer who has to make time to write between taking care of her babies, and I sneered and thought, Well, how nice for YOU.

I don’t like that I have to work. I don’t like this state. I don’t like my empty apartment where the only movement comes from a fish and cockroaches.

I would love nothing more than to go home and mope, but I can't. On a more optimistic day, I set up a Night of Writing Dangerously in my area: a Nanowrimo tradition where writers meet and work on their books for six hours late into the night.

That's just great.

5:45 pm

There’s nothing like a café; I walked in and was instantly soothed by dim lights and the smell of cinnamon-caramel coffee. I went upstairs to a mass of couches and found four of my friends with their computers already on their laps.

I set up a table near an outlet and stretched my fingers. So what if I felt crappy? I could totally do this.

9:00 pm

At this point I had accomplished so much that I was proud and exhausted. I was glad I came, and I felt better about life in general.

I looked at the clock. Three hours left. Oh, no. I started to wonder what I got myself into.

12:00 am

I did it. Holy cow. I took a half-hour break to talk to my buddies when the strain on my brain got to be too much, but I worked until 12 am.

And I reached 50,000 words. I won Nano.

And I finished my book. It’s so incomplete it feels more like a really long outline, but it has a beginning, middle, end… it’s a full rough draft.

I'll always remember my Night of Writing Dangerously. Never say no to adventures!

About Me

I'm an aspiring novelist and a mother. I blog about books, history, my writing projects, being a homemaker, and little discoveries I want to share. You can contact me at teralynpilgrim at yahoo dot com.